5. The Armor of God: Gospel Boots

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6. The Armor of God: Shield of Faith Shield

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Okay, so as you can see, this morning we're going to obviously continue through the

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Armor of God series. Today we're going to talk about gospel boots. So, here's our charge, and where do we find the

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Armor of God? What book? Ephesians, what chapter? 6, what verses?

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10 to 20. Alright, good answer. Let's read it. Finally, be strong in the

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Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full Armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.

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For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of darkness, of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

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Therefore, take up the full Armor of God so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.

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Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with the truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.

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Paul continues, in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the

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Spirit, which is the Word of God, with all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.

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And pray on my behalf that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which

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I am an ambassador in change, that in proclaiming it, I may speak boldly as I ought to speak."

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Speaking boldly. Okay, gospel boots, right? They often say, shoes make the man.

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We'll see. Let's see. These gospel boots are going to prepare us to bring the gospel to a lost and dying world.

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In our culture, shoes are a fashion statement. People enjoy them as a way to express their individuality, not merely just to cover their feet.

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It wasn't that way in ancient times. Most didn't have any shoes at all. They went barefoot.

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As a result, travel was slow and difficult, especially if the terrain was rough. Generally, the people most likely to have shoes, apart from the wealthy, were soldiers and couriers, people whose lives and livelihoods depended on their ability to travel far and fast.

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So, putting this in context, back then, we see shoes as a necessity, a basic necessity.

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They looked at shoes as a luxury. They didn't have what we have. I mean,

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I bet most people in here have at least four pairs of shoes. You probably have a pair of Crocs when you walk outside.

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You have dress shoes. You have sneakers and some other kind, or maybe more. I'm not going to get into that. This is not a marriage conference, right?

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But shoes are prevalent in society, right? They're easy to get, and we need them.

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How much more so, in the context that Paul's talking about, is he's making the analogy to gospel shoes, shoes that we put on our feet as part of the armor of God.

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Again, it's armor. It's designed to protect us. The Apostle Paul doesn't want that experience to befall us as Christians.

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He wants us to be prepared for the travails of life in this difficult world, having shod your feet with the readiness given by the gospel of peace.

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If you are to be engaged in an armed conflict, you can't afford to go unshod. You can't afford to go barefoot.

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You need proper footwear. The Romans, the Roman soldiers understood this, so they equipped their soldiers with sturdy studded boots, right?

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If you're given marching orders and you have no boots to march in, what are you going to do? You're in a battle, right?

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One of the most important things you need is a firm footing. Imagine trying to battle against somebody who, you're playing soccer or football, baseball with cleats, and you're playing barefoot.

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It's a big advantage, so you need the right shoes. David Guzik, who's a

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Calvary Chapel guy, he says, readiness or preparation is a word meaning a prepared foundation.

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The gospel provides the footing for everything we do. But however powerful the rest of your body is, if you're wounded in your feet, you are easy prey for the enemy.

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You're either going to slow down, you're going to limp, whatever the case may be, you're easy prey. Your ability to fight will depend on what you're standing on or on what shoes you wear.

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It's crucial. Have you ever lost your footing, like during the wintertime,

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I'm sure, at your dad's house sliding down that hill? You lose your footing, that's it. You slip, you're on the floor.

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You could break your elbow, you could break your head, you could break all kinds of bones in your bodies. If you don't have a firm footing on ground, you're easy prey.

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On the shoes, Josephus, anybody know who Josephus is? He's a

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Jewish historian. Around the time when the Romans sacked Israel, sacked

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Jerusalem, they took him in and made him write out a history of what happened.

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And they used him, in fact, we use Josephus' writings as an apologist to corroborate the information we have in the

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Gospel. So Josephus described them as shoes thickly studded with sharp nails, this is the

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Roman soldier shoes, so as to ensure good grip. The military successes both of Alexander the

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Great and of Julius Caesar were due in large measure to their armies being well shod and thus able to undertake long marches at incredible speed over rough terrain.

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Shoes are vital to the mission. The idea of preparation is really readiness.

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We must be mobile, flexible, and ready with the truth. This is the place to be in the

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Christian life, to live in constant readiness and flexibility. So my question today is, are you ready to share the

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Gospel? Can you share the Gospel with the other people around you? That word hetoimos, out of the low -knighted dictionary, it's a state of being ready for action.

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So once you put those Gospel shoes on, it's action time. Without good shoes, you're not going to be balanced, you're not going to be prepared to bring the

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Gospel to anyone. Yet the primary background of Paul's imagery here is not the typical

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Roman soldier. It is once again found in the Old Testament, in Isaiah 52, the prophet declares this.

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So Paul is quoting Isaiah. So although it has application to the Roman soldier and it has application to us, it's rooted and grounded in the book of Isaiah, the prophet.

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And it reads, how beautiful up on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news. Hmm, where have you heard that before?

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Who publishes peace, who brings the good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Sion, your

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God reigns. Do you know that this is the only other passage in the Bible where feet, good news, and peace occur together?

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This is important. Paul is using this image from Isaiah, bringing it forward to New Testament times that has application for them and us.

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So when Paul speaks of feet shod with the readiness of the Gospel of peace, here's my question to you.

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Does he mean the readiness given by the Gospel of peace or the readiness to spread the good news that brings the peace?

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What do you think? Both. Oh, hey, you're covering both bases.

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I know I'm the only one who believed that good works get you to heaven. I'm used to this. Okay. All right, here we go.

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I'll give you the answer. Paul is making connection with Isaiah 52 passage. Then if Paul is making a connection with the

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Isaiah 52 passage, then the readiness he has in mind is primarily the readiness to share the good news as heralds of the

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Gospel. It is true that we ourselves need to hear the good news of peace that we are called to share with others, yet heralds primarily need good shoes to enable them to travel far and fast to bring their message to those waiting to hear the good news.

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So it is being ready to bring the good news to people. And we're going to get into the context of why that is.

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Isaiah presents the image of watchmen bursting into joyful song on the walls of Jerusalem. These watchmen who had long strained their eyes with fearful anticipation of an approaching enemy, army, now become heralds declaring good news of deliverance to the beleaguered citizens of Zion.

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Paul applies the same image to our privilege of sharing the Gospel of peace with believers and unbelievers alike.

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He makes the same connection when he cites both the prophet Joel and Isaiah in Romans 10. So what

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Isaiah is talking about the watchmen on the walls, when the army went out to fight a battle, they would need somebody to bring the news of what happened in the battle back to the city.

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They didn't have social media, they didn't have cell phones. So there would be a messenger who would come from the army and start running back with the news to tell what happened to the people in the city.

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If the guy was running and he had a happy, confident demeanor, they would say, he's bringing good news.

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They got excited. They could tell by the way his feet were moving that, yeah, we had victory.

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If he came back and he's just doing one of these and his head down, they're like, uh -oh, we didn't win.

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So that's what he's talking about, the feet that bring good news. The watchman on the wall would look out as far as he could, looking for somebody to come back with the news of what happened in the battle.

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Romans 10, this is what Paul uses Isaiah 52 to talk about. For everyone who calls upon the name of the

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Lord will be saved. That's good news. How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?

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And how are they to believe in him whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

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And how are they to preach unless they are sent as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news.

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The same way the messenger would come back to the city to give them the good news that our army won the battle is the same way we are to bring the gospel, the good news to the people around us to tell them that God's army,

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Jehovah Sabaoth, the Lord of the armies has won the battle. We come with the message of good news and we should be, our demeanor should reflect that.

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Notice how differently these passages present the task of evangelism from the way in which we often conceive it, right?

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This is a messenger, an ambassador coming, he's excited, you can tell, he has good news to bring to people.

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Is that the way we bring good news to people when we share the gospel? Is it good news really or just like a mandatory sales pitch?

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You know, this is what I want to do, I hope this person gets saved, but you know, let me try, let me try to convince them.

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Is it a sales pitch? Is it good news really or just a task I have to do because I'm told to do it?

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Well, God told me to do it, so I'll do it. You're doing it out of duty, not delight.

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Is it good news really or a way to make me feel like I'm a Christian? Hey, you know, I witnessed to this guy, this guy, yeah, I'm really a

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Christian. It's like you're building yourself up. Is it good news really or a way to satisfy my responsibility before God?

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Well, I did what you told me to do. Have you been impacted by the gospel really, personally?

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Has there been a heart change such that you recognize what you deserve, you don't have it, and now you love your king enough to tell the people about him?

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That's the good news. Are you really concerned about the person you're bringing the gospel to?

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Love God, love neighbor. Do you really love your neighbor? Is that your motivation for sharing the gospel with them or is it a duty?

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I have to do this. Am I more concerned about my own obedience?

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Well, I have to do it because this is what God commanded to me to do. Is that your motivation, yourself?

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Your motivation needs to be your neighbor next to you. Am I just easing my own conscience and not trusting in the cross?

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When I share the gospel, it's not how eloquent I speak, it's based on the power of the cross, the power of the spirit bringing dead hearts to life, bringing eyes and ears open, opening them so that they can hear the gospel.

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So the real question is, is it really good news to me?

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Is it good enough for you, but are you ashamed to tell others?

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I tell you what, everybody in here can share good news. There's not a person in here who

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I haven't heard went out to a dinner at a great restaurant, you come back to church like, oh, I went to this place, they got the greatest steak ever, the mashed potatoes, it was unbelievable.

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You're an evangelist for that steakhouse. You see a great football game on Sunday, Monday or Monday night or Wednesday, did you see what that guy did?

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He threw an 80 -yard pass. You're an evangelist for your football team or the game. You can do this.

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God has saved your soul through Jesus Christ on a cross. Is that worth telling someone?

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Gosh, I hope so. So our task is simply to proclaim the good news of God's peace to broken and oppressed souls wherever and whenever we encounter them.

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It's incumbent upon us to do that. I don't want to make it sound like it's your duty. It should be a delight.

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If the gospel has really impacted you, you should want to do this. The task of the herald.

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The task of being a herald is simple and twofold. Get the message right and get the message out. To begin with, we need to get the message right.

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In Isaiah's context, the good news of peace we have been commissioned to share could be broken down into three statements.

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This is what Isaiah was telling the people who were reading his book right at that point.

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First, our God reigns. Second, he has redeemed Jerusalem and comforted his people. And three, the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our

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God. And essentially, our message is the same. It just concerns

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Jesus. First, we announce to people that our God, Yahweh, the God of the Bible, reigns.

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What do I say every Sunday? Jesus is Lord. He's ruling and reigning until he makes his enemies a footstool for his feet.

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Jesus is Lord. He's reigning right now. No worldly things, money, beauty, authority, success, relationships, have real power over us.

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The Lord reigns. They are every bit as empty as the Babylonian idols of the Old Testament times, of what

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Isaiah was talking to them about. Yet we and the people around us treat those idols as if they had enormous significance.

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Most live much of their lives in miserable bondage to idols, making the endless sacrifices that they demand of us.

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Our false gods are harsh taskmasters. They may reward some of us with their fickle blessings, only to ensnare us even more deeply in their power.

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So the question is, what is Lord in your life? What is it that's competing with Jesus for your attention, for your affection, for your time, for your money?

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There's always something trying to compete with Jesus. That's the battle that we're in.

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And we have to recognize what idols we have. Some idols, money, success, relationships, happiness, fun, security.

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So let me ask you this. And I asked this at the contending conference.

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What is it that you fear most? What is it that you fear most?

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Because your fears will reveal what you hold most dear. What are you fearing?

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There's only one God who can deliver you from those fears. The second thing we are to announce is that the

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Lord has redeemed Jerusalem and comforted His people. That was back then. Now it applies to the church.

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The Lord has redeemed His people on the cross. I know my sheep. My sheep know me.

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I give them eternal life and they will never perish. Jesus came to seek and save the lost and He does not fail in His mission.

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All that the Father gives me will come to me. Whoever comes to me I will in no wise cast out but raise them up on the last day for it is my will to do the will of my

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Father. I will lose none of all those He has given me. This speaks of the incredible grace that comes to us in the gospel.

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The gospel is not the pronouncement that God loves good people and that if you get your act together He might just love you too.

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That would certainly not have been good news for Isaiah's audience nor would it have been good news for us because none of us got our act together.

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We all have issues. We all have idols. Early in the book of Isaiah, Jerusalem was completely condemned for the repeated failure of both its leaders and its citizens.

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They had hard hearts, blind eyes, deaf ears, repeatedly ignoring the Lord's entreaties through His prophet.

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Isaiah was told that this hardness of heart would persist for generations until a terrible judgment would come upon God's people because of their lengthy record of sin and failure.

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Anybody else sinned this week? There's coming a day of judgment. What are you going to do with that sin?

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How are you going to pay for it? If you're a Christian you don't. You recognize that Christ died on the cross for your sins, right?

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That's the breastplate of righteousness and the belt of truth. But if you don't recognize

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Jesus as Lord and trust in Him as the payment, who's your payment? Only two things.

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Either Jesus is going to pay for the sins or you're going to pay for your own sins. Judgment would have been a fit end to their story.

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Jerusalem is a city with no survivors like a tree chopped down and its trunk burned by fire. But even in the midst of pending judgment the

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Lord gives hints of hope like a temporary shelter in a farmer's field. Something will survive the destruction.

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The tree will be cut down and burned but there will be a stump left behind from which a new tree, a new sprout will grow.

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Judgment is what all of us deserve. No one deserves eternal life. We deserve judgment.

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And because of Jesus there's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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That should be our mindset. We do not deserve the mercy and grace of God yet we have it because of His death, burial and resurrection.

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Praise God! But that should be our mindset. Not that we deserve it.

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Not that we've done something to get it. It's a gift. That's why we need to tell others about it.

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We need to be transformed by the power of the gospel first. Love God, love neighbor, bring them the gospel.

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After many chapters of searching judgment God sends out His heralds with comforting words of peace.

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In spite of Israel's repeated sin the Lord will not let His people go. There is hope yet for Israel and there is certainly hope for the church.

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Then heralds were instructed to declare that this good news was not just for Israel. It was for the world.

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It was not confined to those physically descended from Abraham. Since Israel was to receive a salvation that they had not earned or merited, a salvation entirely from the

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Lord's grace and mercy, that same salvation could even come to their former oppressors. So the

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Babylonians, the Assyrians, even the Persians could receive salvation because it was by mercy and grace.

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The Antinous and all the rest of you in life who have sinned, the gospel comes to us.

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We're not Jews. Maybe somebody's of Israel descent here. I'm not. But Jesus died for people from every tribe, every tongue, every people, and every language.

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So our idols. So what are the idols that reign in your life or should

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I say who reign in your life? The idols like to talk. They like to pretend to be people and whisper in your ear.

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For some, it tends to be money and productivity. You know, I'm a task -oriented guy. You give me a task, I got to get it done.

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It's almost like I put that before praying and reading my Bible. Right? It's like, I got to get this done first.

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Mm -mm. You shouldn't do anything without praying and reading your Bible. When unexpected bills mount up, you can feel rising fear in their heart.

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Their idol declares them a failure. When my health prevents me from doing as much as I am used to doing,

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I become irritable. My idol is cursing me and I respond with fear and anxiety.

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Your idols are going to whisper in your ear and tell you that you are not who God said you are. Who are you in Christ?

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You are an heir to everything that Jesus owns. You are his children's.

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You are no longer orphans on the train. You've been adopted. You've been resumed. You've been seated in heavenly places.

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Everything that Jesus has, you have as well. Others may have different idols or they may respond to the same idols differently.

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Some respond to their idols with cursing and anger, lashing out at those around them. Others find themselves sucked into addictive patterns of behavior, whether with food or alcohol or even seemingly positive things like exercising or cleaning.

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Those can become an idol as a way to escape the bad feelings triggered by our idol's curses.

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We have to recognize those idols have no power over us. The only power an idol has is the power

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I give it. You place your faith and trust in Christ. He doesn't need your power.

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His power is the one that saves us. Recognize your weakness because in your weakness he is made strong.

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As Christians, we have good news for a world that lies in bondage to idols. The gospel gives us peace by declaring our freedom from false gods.

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They do not reign. Jesus Christ rules and reigns right now. He's the only one whose verdict on your life matters.

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So the guy who looks at you and says, that's the kind of car you drive, that's the kind of house you live in, that's the kind of job you get, he's setting himself up as judge.

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He's not the judge. Who cares about those things? I'm righteous before God because of Christ.

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I want to live a life that spreads the gospel, that brings the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. That's the only thing that matters.

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If the Lord declares you cursed, nothing else can remedy your lostness. But if the

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Lord says you are blessed, then you are certainly blessed. In Christ, which is the overriding theme of Ephesians, God declares that his people are blessed indeed with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

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In Christ. In Christ. In Christ. If you're trusting in Christ, you have the smile of the

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Father's favor resting upon you forever and an eternal heritage that you cannot lose.

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Are you living your life with that in mind? Like if your dad, if your dad was

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Elon Musk, would you be worried about having a car? No.

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You wouldn't. You wouldn't need gas either. You wouldn't be worried.

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Why are we worrying? God is our Father. God is our Father. And I'm not using that as a license to just, you know, freeload, like don't get a job.

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No, no. You've got to work. You've got to work. But your lot in life is not dependent upon your work.

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It's dependent on God's blessing. That's what you're living for. You are not an orphan. You are a child of the one true living

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God. Has that sunk in? Has that sunk in?

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We sometimes walk around with our chin in our chest. It's like, wait a second. Like Pastor said on Wednesday, you're not just hanging in there.

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You're more than a conqueror in Christ. The world looks at you and says, they're defeated.

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Look at them. We should be the most happy, joyful, proud people on the, and that proud is not the right word, rejoicing people on the planet.

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Right? Right? Dr. Rigney said, first in, last out, singing the loudest.

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I want to be first on the field, last off the field, singing the loudest because my God reigns.

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What am I worried about? Early in Ephesians, according to Paul, Jesus entered this world to proclaim the good news of peace to those who were far away and peace to those who were near.

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That is, he came to bring Jews and Gentiles together into one new body through faith in Christ, through the work of the spirit.

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Ephesians 2, for he himself is our peace. Who? Jesus. He's our peace.

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He has made us both one and has broken down his flesh, the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two.

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So making peace and might reconcile, so making peace and might reconcile both us, both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

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God's wrath does not abide on you. You have the favor of God. You have the love of God abiding on you and that can never change.

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Are you living a life that reflects that? You should be smiling.

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Thank you. We're not going to get a little, move a little quick. So who is our herald?

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Jesus Christ. The gospel sandals, yet another piece of the armor of God that Jesus wore first.

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He had them on in our place. Jesus came not merely as a herald of the good news of our salvation, but as its accomplisher.

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He not only brought the message, he was the message. He was the man with the plan.

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He was the plan. He laid down his own life for our sins so that we who were

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God's natural enemies could become friends through simple faith in Christ. You were objects of wrath,

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Ephesians 2 says. Through his death and resurrection, we have peace with God. Jesus is the spirit -filled servant of the

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Lord from Isaiah 61, whom the Lord had anointed to proclaim good news to the poor. We are the recipients of that good news.

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If you're a Christian, your heart's been changed. You're no longer an orphan. You are in Christ. You are an heir to everything that God owns.

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Jesus brought the good news of salvation to the woman at the well, married six times, didn't know who was her husband.

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Jesus says, you worship what you don't know. We're going to worship what we do know.

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He brought it to the lepers, the outcasts who needed healing and wholeness. Those people who physically had disabilities, but had greater spiritual disabilities on the inside, like us.

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He came to the physically dead in order to raise them. Word from Jesus, raise, get up, they were up.

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He came to bring the news to the spiritually dead, which is what I was prior to hearing the gospel, to God opening my eyes and my ears and my heart.

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He quickened me. This peace was dramatically purchased through Jesus' death on the cross.

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There God treated the innocent one as guilty, like Barabbas, so that he could treat us, the guilty ones, as innocent.

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That is the very heartbeat of the gospel of peace. Now because of what Jesus has done, we have unshakable peace with God.

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This is a peace that cannot be broken because it doesn't depend on our effort. Jesus made peace for us with the

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Father. If we are in Christ, we are in union with God, we are in union with Christ, and we are at peace with both because of Jesus, the mediator between God and man.

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We are no longer guilty in God's sight. That poisonous pile of our personal sins has been removed from our record and chalked up onto Jesus' record.

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Through his death and resurrection, we are now God's friends, part of God's family, we are no longer rebels on the run from an angry deity, but beloved children with a safe, eternal home in heaven.

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Ian Duguid, get this book, The Whole Armor of God. It's excellent. I'm completely relying on it, actually.

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It's excellent. So Jesus not only brought us the message, he was the message.

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He is our herald. Proclaiming the good news. Who needs to hear the good news?

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For all first, we ourselves are the first people who need to hear the good news of peace. Maybe every morning, if you're like me, you need to preach the gospel to yourself.

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I'm not righteous because of what I've done, I'm righteous because of what Jesus has done for me. Help me to rest in the perfect, finished work of Christ as I start my day.

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We often don't have the unshakable peace that the gospel should bring us because things, the world is shaking around us.

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And when we hold on to those things, we shake with it. We are undone by our own failures as well as the curses of our idols, which we continue to permit to define our lives.

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Your idols don't define you. God defines you. Just look at what everything the culture is trying to redefine.

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They're trying to redefine when life begins. They're trying to redefine what a baby is. They're trying to redefine what a man is, what a woman is, what marriage is.

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Don't let them redefine you. You go back to God's word. You'll know when life begins.

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You'll know what a baby is. You'll know what a man is. You'll know what a woman is. You'll know these things. You'll know who you are.

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It's all based on God's word in the scriptures and Him adopting you. We need to hear the news that our

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God reigns and that He has provided us with the profound cleansing that makes us right with Him.

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It is the most humbling thing to realize there was nothing you did, could do, or would do that would make

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God love you the way He does. It's only because of someone else. It's only because of Jesus Christ.

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When we lack peace as believers, it is often because our eyes are fixed on ourselves and on our own performance as if that were the determining factor of our destiny.

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Can I make a prediction here and I'm not a prophet? I guarantee you sometime in the future everyone in here is going to sin.

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The remedy is to shift our eyes away from ourselves and to our God and what

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He has done to cleanse us of our sin. We need a righteousness extra nos, from outside of ourselves, a foreign righteousness.

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Our righteousness is not going to cut it. The gospel of peace likewise gives us persistence in declaring the good news in the face of the difficulties and the challenges of life.

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We have been made right with God. We have a glorious inheritance stored up with Christ. God has planned a wonderful future for us in a place where there is no more death, no more pain, no more frustration, no more tears.

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Have you ever like thought about that? Like what that's going to look like?

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I don't even think that our sin stained minds can actually picture it in its fullness. This present warfare is not all there is.

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Yes, we have to fight. Yes, we have to struggle. But that's what He's called us to do. That's what

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He did. This present warfare is not all there is. Our successes and failures do not define our existence.

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This struggle against Satan and his forces will not last forever. This rout march will have an end.

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There will come a time for slipping off these boots and easing our weary feet into a nice hot bath.

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Until then, first in, last out, singing the loudest, there's peace for us.

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The gospel of peace enables us to rest even when we fail in sharing the good news, even when we fail and sin ourselves.

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How many times have you been in a situation and you know the person across from you doesn't know the Lord and you fail to share the good news?

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The opportunity didn't come up. Well, if it's really good news, you would have told them about the football game you watched.

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You would have told them about the restaurant you ate at, but you're not going to tell them about Jesus. And I don't want to say that to guilt you.

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I'm just as guilty. We just have to be aware in our minds who rescued us, what this good news really is, how it's impacted us.

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And if we love our neighbor, we're going to get around to that conversation. It also gives us peace in those times when we're unable or unwilling to shout out the gospel.

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It reminds us that our God reigns in evangelism as he does in everything else. Jesus is with us by his spirit, opening our mouths to speak and preparing open ears to hear and soft hearts to receive the truth.

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With that knowledge, we have both the boldness to speak and the security to rest. Now you need to know how to present the gospel.

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I don't want you to think, oh, I'll just wing it. No, practice. We've gone through that on Monday night studies, right?

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If you don't know how to share the gospel, please come and talk to me. I will help you learn how to do that.

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It's imperative that we do that. Again, our God is sovereign, but that doesn't mean you don't have the responsibility to correctly share the gospel.

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You do have the responsibility. And it makes a difference. God uses that to open their eyes, their ears, and their hearts.

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So we are in the obedience business. God is in the results business, right? So you don't just, you know, have another notch on your belt.

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Oh, I shared the gospel and this guy came through a little. Look how good I am. No, no, it wasn't because of you, right?

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So God is the one who brings dead sinners to life. All your job is, is to convey the message.

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Don't take credit for it. Jesus persistently and faithfully spoke good news of peace to a motley crew of incompetent and often ungrateful disciples.

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Is that the elder deacon meeting that we was talking about? I'm sorry. I'm included in that.

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I'm included in that, all right. The crew of incompetent and often ungrateful disciples as well as to an often unreceptive wider

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Jewish audience. I'm going to have to cut that out, right? I'm going to have to edit that out. Maybe, maybe.

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Jesus was never discouraged by those who rejected his message because his ultimate desire was always to do his father's will, not simply to get people to believe in him.

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Read the end of John chapter 6, right? The whole crowd goes, walks away.

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Jesus looks at his disciples and says, you guys want to go too? He wasn't begging people to follow him.

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I know who I am. Jesus, Jesus's will was to accomplish the will of the father. Peter responds back, where are we going to go?

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You're the only one with the words of eternal life, right? When you recognize that the spirit, the spirit quickens your mind, you recognize that you have eternal life, you're going to draw closer to Jesus.

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Jesus was completely at peace knowing he was pleasing his father and not trying to earn his favor.

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Again, when you're preaching the gospel, you're not trying to earn God's favor. You're doing it out of love for your neighbor and love for God, right?

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We should be on, our mindset needs to be, we're on a rescue mission. We're to be pulling people out of a burning building.

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Even if they're fighting against us, we need to pull them out of that burning building, recognizing that their eternal souls are on the line.

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That's the motivation that we should have. We need to put on the shoes, shot our feet with the readiness of the gospel of peace.

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And we are the heralds, but let me ask you this. Can you say what Paul says? I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the

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Jew first and also to the Greek for in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith as it is written, the righteous or the just shall live by faith.

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So quick gut check, are you ashamed of the gospel? Did you not share the gospel because you were afraid of what some would think of you, what they would say about you, how they would feel about you?

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Like I'm on the phone a lot of times with my customers and I have an urge to share the gospel. Sometimes I do.

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Sometimes I don't. Why? Why would I not share the gospel? Oh, he might take his account away from you.

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That would translate into less money. Hmm. Who's my Lord? All right.

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Quick review. The gospel boots give us the preparation ready to face life.

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We have on shoes that we're able to walk around on, to battle the enemy with.

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The task of the herald is to proclaim, to get their message right and get the message out.

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We have to know the message and we also have to know our idols, right? We can use our idol in our testimony when we're talking to other people.

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We can use their idols to show them that their idols are not going to deliver them. Their success in life, their big company that they're the

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CEO of or the owner of is not going to deliver them from death on judgment day. The only thing that delivers from death is the righteousness of Christ.

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Jesus Christ is our herald. He was the one who proclaimed the good news of peace before us.

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He proclaimed the good news and we need to as well. And in the midst of that, there's peace for us.

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If we fail to share the gospel, God continues to love us the way he loves

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Jesus Christ. We're works in progress. I hope this motivates you to share the gospel.

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Not out of guilt, not out of duty, not out of pride or selfishness, but out of love for neighbor and love for the

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God who paid the price for your sins on the cross. So put your shoes on and be ready.

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Just do it. Questions?

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No questions? You all have your shoes on? Why is it good to be reminded that our

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God reigns? I have questions for you. It makes you realize who's in control.

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It makes you recognize that even what we're going through in the midst of our society in this country, he's in control of that, right?

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How much more important is it that we preach the gospel to people who are different than us religiously, different than us politically, different than us in whatever way?

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We need to be reaching out to them in love, right? To give them the gospel.

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God saved me, not because I'm a good guy. When God got me, he didn't get anything good.

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I didn't add to God's value. All right.